Given that the companies have also installed a ride based on the creatures at Universal Studios Orlando, it’s clear they see the little yellow guys / girls / things as their answer to the Madagascar penguins.

Now Hop co-writer Brian Lynch has cranked out a script that will follow some of the characters – Dave? Larry? – introduced in Despicable Me and also bring on new Minions for a story still being kept under wraps.

Despicable director Pierre Coffin will handle helming duties alongside The Lorax’s Kyle Balda, and Coffin and Chris Renaud will be back providing some of the voices.

The big question is how they will make a story work focused on the squat characters, given that they mostly babble away in a language only they understand. This could be the most difficult challenge since Chris Nolan made Bane intelligible. But according to the two studios, they’ve cracked a story that’ll make it all work. Despicable Me 2, meanwhile, will be out on June 28 next year.

The reason these guys work is because they're not the main characters. Like Scrat in Ice Age, they're funniest when they're in the background or just doing some silly, out-of-plot skit. After a whole movie of them I can see them getting really boring. More